In Christopher Hitchens book, The Portable Atheist, Arthur Schopenhauer contrasts the peaceable historical record of the Hindus and the Buddhists with the wickedness and cruelty of the monotheists and then concludes: Indeed, intolerance is essential only to monotheism; an only God is by nature a jealous God who will never allow another to live. On the other hand, polytheistic gods are naturally tolerant; they live and let live. In the first place, they gladly tolerate their colleagues, the gods of the same religion, and this tolerance is afterwards extended even to foreign gods who are accordingly, hospitably received and later admitted, in some cases, even to an equality of rights. An instance of this is seen in the Romans who willingly admited and respected Phrygian, Egyptian and other foreign gods. Thus it is only the monotheistic religions that furnish us with the spectacle of religious wars, religious persecutions, courts for trying heretics, and also with that of iconoclasm, the destruction of the images of foreign gods, the demolition of Indian temples and Egyptian colossi that had looked at the sun for three thousand years; all this because their jealous God has said: "Thou shall make no graven image" and so on. Monotheism has been criticized for suppressing human freedom. Many scholars have argued that it inevitably leads to totalitarianism whereas more and more modern philosophers see polytheism as a possible source of pluralism, creativity, and human freedom. Feminists have also criticized the monotheistic God as a male chauvinist who is unwilling to change and is insensitive to "femininity" It can truly be said that all the Holy Scriptures promote misogyny, the hatred of women. Islam is particularly bad on this point.

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